Board of Directors

DAVE BIDINI / Editor-in-Chief

Dave Bidini is Editor-in-Chief, President and Chair of the Board of West End Phoenix. He is the only person to have been nominated for a Gemini, Genie and Juno as well CBC's Canada Reads. A founding member of Rheostatics, he has written 12 books, including On a Cold Road, Tropic of Hockey, Around the World in 57 1/2 Gigs and Keon and Me.

WARREN SHEFFER / Secretary

Warren is the Secretary of the Board of West End Phoenix. He is a business and intellectual property lawyer. He regularly advises authors and performers as well as professional organizations that represent them, and provides corporate counsel to small and mid-sized companies. Warren began his legal career at the law firm Fasken Martineau LLP (1999–2004) and has been in private practice with Marian Hebb (Hebb & Sheffer) for over a decade. Warren serves as duty counsel at Artists' Legal Advice Services (ALAS), a not-for-profit summary legal advice clinic that counsels artists of all disciplines, and formerly chaired its related not-for-profit corporation, ALAC (2013–2016). Warren served as the founding chair of the Queen West Art Crawl corporation. He loves hockey and bird watching.

CRAIG HUDSON / Treasurer

Craig Hudson is the Treasurer of West End Phoenix. He is a Chartered Accountant with nearly 20 years of experience in finance and operations. His career was built on a decade of accounting and transaction advisory experience with KPMG (Vancouver; London, U.K.; and Toronto) and eight years with Indigo, ultimately serving as the vice-president of digital operations. He is currently the chief operating officer of Lift, a media and technology company in the dynamic Canadian cannabis space. Past Board experience includes the Queen West Art Crawl (co-Chair) and UBC Alumni (Advisory Committee).

NICK DePENCIER / Director

Nick DePencier is a Director of West End Phoenix. He is a director, producer and director of photography working in documentary, performing arts and dramatic film. He is president of Mercury Films Inc., the Toronto-based production company he shares with his partner, Jennifer Baichwal. DePencier's video art installations include Watermark Cubed at Nuit Blanche in Toronto, Music Inspired by the Group of Seven with the Rheostatics in Walker Court at the Art Gallery of Ontario, and Ice Forms, an installation that was part of the Lawren Harris Exhibition at the AGO in the summer of 2016 – all collaborations with Jennifer Baichwal. With Baichwal, he is the co-director and DOP of Long Time Running, a feature documentary on the Tragically Hip's iconic Man Machine Poem tour from the summer of 2016, and Anthropocene, a collaboration with Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky that includes a feature documentary, video installation, 360VR, AR and photogrammetry slated for release in the fall of 2018.

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